In the first experiment a synthetic progesterone was administered to pigs orally to see if pregnancy was possible without
functional corpora lutea, or CLs. The second tried determining if new CLs could be induced in pregnant sows given PGF2, a
drug that causes regression in the structures.

“Pregnant women need one CL, or the pregnancy will result in an abortion,” said C. Edward Ferguson, associate professor of
animal sciences and one of the researchers at McNeese. “With the pregnant pigs we were looking to create new CLs, causing
them to ovulate, extending the pregnancy and resulting in a healthy birth.”

According to Chip LeMieux, department head and a researcher on the project, the sows that were given the synthetic progesterone,
called altrenogest, were able to carry out a full-term pregnancy even in the absence of CLs.

“This may be a way females who have had early-term pregnancies can extend gestation,” he said. “What we would want to do is
continue this study and incorporate some kind of incremental doses.”

Even though no piglets were born in the second experiment the researchers were able to maintain pregnancies with induced CLs.
With this new information OB/GYNs could give women who have had past complications with pregnancies a better medicine for
a healthy birth.

“Women who have had a pattern of early
miscarriages early on due to luteal dysfunction could be given
CL-increasing supplementary
progesterone,” said Ferguson.

“This would be a more natural form of
treatment because the ovaries would be creating progesterone, and there
would be a possibility
of less or no side effects that many fertility medications have,
making it more beneficial health-wise.”